Gravitational Wave Follow-Up Using Low Energy Neutrinos in IceCube DeepCore

TL;DR

This paper explores how the IceCube DeepCore detector can be used to follow up on gravitational wave events by detecting low-energy neutrinos, complementing high-energy neutrino searches.

Contribution

It introduces the adaptation of IceCube DeepCore for low-energy neutrino detection to enhance gravitational wave follow-up capabilities.

Findings

DeepCore can detect neutrinos above ~10 GeV for transient source searches.

The method complements existing high-energy neutrino follow-up strategies.

Potential to improve multi-messenger astrophysics with combined neutrino and gravitational wave data.

Abstract

The IceCube DeepCore is a dense infill array of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. While IceCube is best suited for detecting neutrinos with energies of several 100 GeV and above, DeepCore allows to probe neutrinos with lower energies. We focus on a sample of neutrinos with energies above approximately 10 GeV, which was originally optimised for oscillation experiments. Recently, it has been adapted to enable searches for transient sources of astrophysical neutrinos in the sky. In particular, this low-energy dataset can be used to conduct follow-up searches of gravitational wave transients detected by the LIGO-Virgo instruments. A study of this, which complements IceCube's follow-up of gravitational wave events using high-energy neutrino samples, will be discussed here.